WATCH - The Other (1972)

It is safe to say that, among the movies made in that defining cinematic decade of the ‘70s, The Other is one of the best—a near-flawless example of tone and storytelling melded with wonderfully effective material and meaning. In the hands of Academy Award nominee Robert Mulligan (responsible for To Kill a Mockingbird and Summer of ‘42, among many others) and adapted by actor-turned-writer Thomas Tyron from his own best-selling novel, this paranormal period piece about psychologically unsound twins takes elements of The Bad Seed and twists them into an amazing American Gothic. Now out on DVD in a beautifully restored print, this story of an old-fashioned family in the middle of a picturesque, pastoral setting scans the surfaces of normalcy—and locates the ugly underneath. [Amazon]